A virtuoso pianist born in Kiev, Ukraine, Lisitsa, like Bieber, is a YouTube sensation. Her live performance videos, which showcase her bewitching lyricism and note-perfect skill, have topped nearly 50 million hits on the video sharing website.

Her popularity in the digital realm has translated to opportunity in the physical world: last June, the 39-year-old was tapped to perform a debut gig at London's Royal Albert Hall as a solo recitalist.

Fresh off the biggest concert of her life and close to a career milestone, Lisitsa will join the Stamford Symphony in the opening concerts of the group's 2012-13 season.

Taking place at the Palace Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 6, and Sunday, Oct. 7, the concerts will boast a trio of sweeping, romantic-era pieces that will "knock the audience's socks off," conductor Eckart Preu said. "When you're having an opening, you want the orchestra to shine,. We're lighting this whole thing up."

A fundraiser for the symphony, the Oct. 6 concert will be preceded by a reception and dinner at the University of Connecticut in Stamford and a silent auction. The orchestra will return for an afternoon performance on Oct. 7.

Lisitsa, who is known for wowing audiences in concert and online, will team with the symphony on its performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff's jaw-dropping "Piano Concerto No. 3." Made famous in the 1996 film "Shine," the 40-minute piece has the reputation of being one of the most technically challenging piano concertos in the standard classical repertoire.

"It's so emotionally charged," Lisitsa said, adding, "It's one of the most difficult pieces to play."

The concert will kick off with another evocative composition: the overture from Mikhail Glinka's 19th century, fairy-tale opera, "Ruslan and Lyudmila." An explosion of orchestral fireworks, it is propelled by a salvo of scurrying strings and booming brass and wind that glow and dim before intensifying to a blazing finale.

"When you want to thrill people who are difficult to thrill, you play this piece," Preu said.

The concert will close with Jean Sibelius's "Symphony No. 2," a lush, expressive composition that is "famous for its depiction of the vast Nordic landscape," Preu said.

All three compositions are rooted in romanticism, Preu said. Born in the early 19th century, the style emphasized the expression of human emotions and the expansion of the orchestra from the classical period.

"After Beethoven," who helped to usher in the romantic era, "there was a need to express more than just music; there was a need to express human emotions," Preu said. "The music was more complex, dramatic."

The symphony, backed by a superlative soloist and YouTube phenom, is hoping to move audiences with three pieces that are exemplary of the style. For Lisitsa, it doesn't matter if she plays for 1,500 (as is the case with the Palace Theatre), 10,000 (as is the case for Royal Albert Hall) or millions of people (as is the case with YouTube). The music, she said, "stays the same."